After the War, Venning became an Instructor at the Staff College and then in 1922 was promoted to Assistant Adjutant General at the War Office.[2] He was appointed Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General at Aldershot Command in 1927 and Deputy Adjutant & Quartermaster General at Eastern Command in India in 1929.[2] In 1931 he became commanding officer of the 2nd (Rawalpindi) Infantry Brigade in India, and then in 1934 returned to the British Army as Director of Movements and Quartering at the War Office.[2]

In the Second World War, Venning served as Quartermaster-General to the Forces from 2 February 1939[3] to 1942; in this capacity he had responsibility for the War Office Fleet, which he despatched to Dunkirk in 1940 to evacuate Allied forces.[4] According to The Times, "It was due to the superb organization which [Venning] created and directed that the mobilization of the Regular Army in 1939, the embodiment of the Territorial Army and the embarkation of the expeditibnary force were carried out with such astonishng smoothness."[1]